This study investigates the determinants, content, and effects of parental disciplinary interventions with children. Parental control is an important focus of research on the environmental transmission of normal and dysfunctional behavior patterns. It was proposed that parents' choice of strategy may in part be determined by the kinds of goals they have when intervening to control a child's behavior. It was hypothesized that children's transgressions differ in the extent to which they arouse in parents goals for producing short-term, immediate changes of long-term enduring changes in children's behavior and that parents take these objectives into account when choosing strategies. A non-clinical sample of 64 middle-class mothers and their four-year-old children was studied in a laboratory experiment in which mothers were asked to have the child perform a monotonous task. Mothers' expectations of the long-term or short-term compliance required of their children was experimentally varied and the effects of these perceptions on a subsequent parent-child interaction were assessed. The results indicated that for long-term compliance goals, mothers tended to use more reasoning, character attributions and nurturance than for short-term goals. The same amount of power assertion was used in both conditions; however, boys received more power assertive techniques than girls. Strategies used in the long-term condition were also more effective in promoting both immediate and long-term compliance in children. Implications of this research for models of normal and disturbed parental functioning are discussed.